Daytrotter Studio (Rock Island, IL)

Sep 10, 2012

It's hard to know what we want, isn't it? It's just as hard to know what we need. Sometimes the two go hand-in-hand and other times they couldn't be more exclusive of each another. When we're young, we rarely see a difference and that's when everything hits the fan, when we're able to control very little and we think we're dying. It's when there's nothing but passion coming out of our ears, our mouths, our pores and our pants. There's nothing holding it or us back from over-wanting and over-needing, for asking and then begging for it all, willing to ransom reason and logic sometimes for some fleeting embers.

Wild Cub, the Nashville band fronted by Keegan DeWitt and featuring guitarist Jeremy Bullock, has dug into the theme of youth, with a debut album of the same name, sinking its teeth into those thoughts of hopeless desire - wishes that can never be fulfilled - and of unprecedented love, for their age and their lot. It's a record that is spectacular at capturing the feeling of being completely on fire and nowhere near a lake. It captures that burden of youth, that sense that this is everything and nothing, that this is going to hurt and be exhilarating and we're never going to be able to tell which is which.

The Daytrotter Dream Interview, where Keegan DeWitt both asks and answers his own questions:1. Pick two poems (or excerpts) that most influenced you:From "When first we faced and touching showed" by Philip Larkin"When first we faced, and touching showedHow well we knew the early moves,Behind the moonlight and the frost,The excitement and the gratitude,There stood how much our meeting owedTo other meetings, other loves."

From "Sad Steps" by Philip Larkin"One shivers slightly, looking up there.The hardness and the brightness and the plainFar-reaching singleness of that wide stareIs a reminder of the strength and painOf being young; that it can't come again,But is for others undiminished somewhere."

It's hard to know what we want, isn't it? It's just as hard to know what we need. Sometimes the two go hand-in-hand and other times they couldn't be more exclusive of each another. When we're young, we rarely see a difference and that's when everything hits the fan, when we're able to control very little and we think we're dying. It's when there's nothing but passion coming out of our ears, our mouths, our pores and our pants. There's nothing holding it or us back from over-wanting and over-needing, for asking and then begging for it all, willing to ransom reason and logic sometimes for some fleeting embers.

Wild Cub, the Nashville band fronted by Keegan DeWitt and featuring guitarist Jeremy Bullock, has dug into the theme of youth, with a debut album of the same name, sinking its teeth into those thoughts of hopeless desire - wishes that can never be fulfilled - and of unprecedented love, for their age and their lot. It's a record that is spectacular at capturing the feeling of being completely on fire and nowhere near a lake. It captures that burden of youth, that sense that this is everything and nothing, that this is going to hurt and be exhilarating and we're never going to be able to tell which is which.

The Daytrotter Dream Interview, where Keegan DeWitt both asks and answers his own questions:1. Pick two poems (or excerpts) that most influenced you:From "When first we faced and touching showed" by Philip Larkin"When first we faced, and touching showedHow well we knew the early moves,Behind the moonlight and the frost,The excitement and the gratitude,There stood how much our meeting owedTo other meetings, other loves."

From "Sad Steps" by Philip Larkin"One shivers slightly, looking up there.The hardness and the brightness and the plainFar-reaching singleness of that wide stareIs a reminder of the strength and painOf being young; that it can't come again,But is for others undiminished somewhere."